Summary
- A total of 100.02 BTC mined in July 2010 was transferred on October 7 for the first time in 16 years, valued at approximately $8.3 million at about $83,000 per Bitcoin.
- The transaction split the coins into two outputs: 10 BTC and 90.02 BTC, sent to new addresses that remain unspent as of Thursday, with no identifiers linking the owner or indicating a sale.
- This activity follows a period of movement from dormant wallets, including six wallets that transferred 553.59 BTC between August 16 and 26.
On October 7, a batch of 100.02 Bitcoin, originating from July 2010—often referred to as the Satoshi era—was moved for the first time in 16 years.
At an approximate price of $83,000 per coin, this batch was valued around $8.3 million at the time of transfer. When mined, these Bitcoins were worth only about $29 based on Bitbo’s highest recorded price for BTC in 2010.
Myriad: How low will Bitcoin go? Click to make your prediction.The transaction was recorded at 18:52 UTC in block 970,379, part of Bitcoin's public ledger system that adds transactions approximately every ten minutes. The coins were divided between two new addresses: one receiving 10 BTC and the other 90.02 BTC.
The transaction fee was 1,467 satoshis (equivalent to about $1.22) for transferring $8.3 million. Both addresses are modern bc1q formats, which were not available at the time the coins were mined. The transaction does not reveal the owner's identity, and transferring coins between addresses does not equate to selling them.
Both coins were mined closely together: 50.02 BTC in block 70,522 on July 26, 2010, and another 50 BTC in block 70,748 on July 28. These two payouts were combined into a single transaction on July 30, 2010, landing in the address that just executed the transfer.
Little did anyone know at the time that 2010 would become a significant year for Bitcoin. A programmer from Florida, Laszlo Hanyecz, famously spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas, a transaction valued at approximately $41 then. Today, that amount has appreciated to over a million times its original value.
The mining rewards have been halved four times since then, with the latest reduction to 3.125 BTC occurring during the April 2024 halving, a process that takes place roughly every four years. Currently, a block mined yields only one-sixteenth of what those early blocks provided.
The address that executed this recent transfer has not been completely inactive; it sent 100 BTC out on two occasions—once on August 8, 2015, and again in December 2017—along with a 249 BTC transfer in March 2018. These were different coins, as Bitcoin tracks individual amounts rather than entire addresses. Galaxy monitors the coins, noting that these specific coins had not moved since 2010.
We maintain a complete ledger of every single UTXO and all their historical movements (about 1.7 terabytes). This address has been somewhat active in the past, but these specific coins have not moved since 2010. We track the coins.
— Galaxy Research (@glxyresearch) October 8, 2026
Coins from Bitcoin's early years are referred to as Satoshi-era coins, named after the network's mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, and have recently been shifting in clusters. In February 2025, a 50 BTC batch that was valued at $0.10 per coin at mining time moved after about 15 years, by which point it was worth around $5 million. The holder did not conduct a test transaction, which is a common practice before making larger transfers.
In August, 49.97 BTC that was first received in July 2011, when Bitcoin was under $15, also moved after approximately 15 years, ending up in a wallet identified by Arkham, a blockchain analytics firm, as FalconX, a prime broker for trading firms. This designation does not confirm a sale, however.
Between August 16 and 26, six wallets that had been dormant since 2011, 2012, or 2014 transferred 553.59 BTC, worth around $40 million. Two of these wallets are linked to a New York lawsuit seeking to declare 39,069 dormant addresses as abandoned property.
As of Thursday, the 10 BTC and 90.02 BTC remain untouched in their new addresses, indicating that this Bitcoin whale has yet to sell their coins—at least for now.